1819.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



229 



the details of construction, and which will be read with interest. 

 He relies as far as possible on earthworks, and the masonry revete- 

 ment he endeavours to keep down below tlie direct line of tire. 

 His revetement, too, is not a mere retaining-wall, but is detached to 

 a great extent from the earth body. It tlius becomes a kind of fender 

 to keep off escalade. His reasons for this cause are very satisfac- 

 tory. In this, as in other details, he has followed Chasseloup, 

 Carnot, and other authorities, but with many modifications. 



Having provided for the defense against direct fire, the next 

 point is against vertical fire; and as our author keeps a greater 

 weight of mortars, and a sufficient cover by casemates, he may be 

 regarded as having done his duty in this respect. He adopts case- 

 mates on the system of General Ilaxo, which are ojien in the rear 

 (and therefore, free from smoke), drier, and better ventilated. The 

 modifications here suggested as to these casemates are, so far as 

 our knowledge extends, practical and valuable. He likewise intro- 

 duces mortar and steam-gun casemates. 



The plans for 2)owder-magazines are ingenious, l)ut we are far 

 from being satisfied as to the result of the wilful or accidental 

 explosion of one of these. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK, 

 FASCICULUS XCVI. 



" I must have liberty 

 Withal, US large a charter as the winds. 

 To blow on whom I please.** 



I. Whether Mr. Ruskin's "Lamps" will much enlighten our ar- 

 chitects, remains to be seen. What their opinion generally may 

 be of his book I know not; but I do know — at least, have heard, 

 that some of them scruple not to call it "very queer stufl';" and 

 perhaps the majority of them fancy that their own little Lamp of 

 Copyism is better worth than all his seven. Re that as it may, 

 quite certain it is that his Lamps have enlightened the gentlemen 

 of the public press, many of whom have now for the very first 

 time touched upon the suljject of Architecture, and have become 

 all at once exceedingly critical upon it; speaking, if not with dng- 

 matisra, most assuredly with abundance of pupjy-ism, puft' in- 

 cluded. This sudden light, it may reasonably be suspected, is 

 derived not so much fi-om the book itself as from the circumstance 

 of its authorship, and from the nimbus that plays around the tem- 

 ples of the "Oxford Graduate;" tlie probability being that had it 

 appeared with the name of plain Jolin Ruskin, and under a less 

 mystical title, the daily papers and the reviews would never 

 ha:e touched it at all, or been able to make anything of it; 

 whereas, now, having got their cue, they go into raptures accord- 

 ingly, and bestow if not very "sincere admiration" — as IMr. Rus- 

 kin himself does on the British Museum — at least, sufficiently 

 well counterfeited admiration, chuckling, perhaps, all the while at 

 the idea of having imposed brummagem upon John Ruskin, which 

 he will clutch at, and pocket as fine gold. Speaking of his book, 

 the Morning Fust assures us that "ladies may read it;" which 

 would seem to imply that there is so much indelicate and paw-paw 

 stuft' in architectural books in general as to render them very ob- 

 jectionable and unfit reading for ladies. No doubt ladies' may 

 read it very safely; the only doubt is, whether they can understand 

 a writer who appears very frequently not to understand himself, 

 at least shows himself unable to explain his meaning intelligibly, 

 but flounders about in mere high-sounding verbi?ige; which, being 

 high-sounding, has been taken by some for eloquence fraught with 

 feeling, and — "feelosophy." As a specimen of such, the Dub/in 

 Universlfi/ 3Iugas:ine quotes the following super-sublime passage: 

 "For, indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, 

 nor ill its gold. Its glory is in its age" — cjiuere, its per cent-r;.vt' — 

 "and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of myste- 

 rious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, whicji we 

 feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of 

 humanity," &c., &c.! Of course this is, or ought to be, exceed- 

 ingly fine, it being evidently intended to be so; but to me, wlio am 

 not one of the enlightened, it appears to be the merest babbling 

 and gabbling,--certainly what any lady may read, but also what 

 any "old lady" might write. 1 sliould like' to have that "deep 

 sense of voicefulness" interpreted into honest plain English; also 

 "washed by the passing waves of liumanity." By "washed," does 

 Ruskin mean "white-washed?" And what, again, does lie mean 

 by "the waves of humanity.''" Possibly it is merely owing to the 

 thickness of my own skull; but I must confess that many of his 



sentences and expressions appear to me no better than the veriest 

 jargon of tawdry sentimentalism and cant, and of the most dis- 

 gusting affectation. 



II. Curious, at all events, it is, that those who pretend to ap- 

 plaud him to the skies, give him no credit for, nor take any notice 

 of some of his most striking and original opinions — such, for in- 

 stance, as his unqualified condemnation of our English "Perpen- 

 dicular" style, and "our own Tudor," which he affiims to be "an 

 ugly and impotent degradation!" notwithstanding that it has been 

 adopted for the new "Palace of Westminster," — wliich costly 

 edifice, by-the-Iiy, is treated very cavalierly by Mr. Fergusson, 

 who more than hints tliat we are' already tired of it before it is 

 finished.— Just now, the epithet "Detestable," which Kata-Phusin 

 Ruskin so cavalierly a])plies to that style, is particularly ungraci- 

 ous and unsavoury. "It adopts," he says, "for its leading feature, 

 an entanglement of cross bars and verticals, showing about as 

 much invention or skill of design as the reticulation of a brick- 

 layer's sieve!" What an awfurthunderbolt is hurled there! For- 

 tunate then is it, that whomsoever else it may strike, it lias not 

 struck any of Mr. Ruskin's own reviewers; nor have they been at 

 all shocked by it. It is true what i\Ir. Ruskin says concerning 

 that style does not amount to much in mere words, but the opinion 

 itself amounts to nothing less than the most violent and unquali- 

 fied condemnation of the style wliich is followed for the greatest 

 architectural undertaking of the present age — a structure in which 

 what he thinks constitutes the viciousness of the style has, in- 

 stead of being at all moderated, been carried to the utmost excess. 

 In one respect, perliaps, the comparison he has made holds good, 

 inasmuch as we detect the character of a sieve in what has drained 

 away so much money. Briefly as Mr. Ruskin's depreciatory 

 opinion is expressed, we cannot possibly suppose that it was ut- 

 tered hurriedly and unguardedly, because he himself says: "I have 

 always spoketi nith contempt of the Tudor style;" and his com- 

 parison certainly does indicate contempt in the most marked man- 

 ner. Had it been uttered by almost any one else, such ojiinion 

 might have been disregarded and left itself to contempt; but com- 

 ing from the quarter it does — from one for whom his reviewers pro- 

 pliecy that he will henceforth be a standard and paranunint autho- 

 rity in matters of taste and art, such emphatic denunciation of that 

 particular style is particularly unfortunate. Sliall we say that Mr. 

 Ruskin is decidedly in error there.? — that would be awkward; be- 

 cause, if he has fallen into an error of such magnitude — so exten- 

 sive for injustice of opinion and insensibility of taste as to condemn 

 one entire style, one moreover that may be called peculiarly 

 English, — what is to assure us that many other of his peculiar 

 opinions are not equally erroneous; or how is lie to be trusted as a 

 safe guide? Besides which, to admit him to be in error tlierc, 

 would be also accusing his critics either of singular stupidity in 

 not detecting it, or of flagrant violation of their duty in not warn- 

 ing us against it; also of want of tact, because a few remarks of 

 a contrary tendency would have served to give some value to their 

 praise, and would have corrected its nauseating fulsomeiiess, which 

 last must, I think, be far less gratifying to IMr. Ruskin himself 

 than to his publishers; since he himself must be well aware that 

 the "Opinions of the Press," as they are called, can do little (ir 

 nothing in securing permanent reputation for a work like his, it 

 being on a subject on which the so-called "gentlemen of the press" 

 know no more than their own readers. 



III. What with his off'-hand wholesale condemnation and some- 

 wliat flippantly-uttered abuse of the Perpendicular and Tudor 

 styles, his extravagant praise of the Doge's Palace at Venice, and 

 his "sincere admiration" of the British Museum, — Mr. Ruskin 

 shows himself to be a decided nonconformist in architectural taste, 

 and, as far as the first-mentioned styles are concerned, to go di- 

 rectly against the popular current. Nevertheless, such noncon- 

 formity and utter disregard of prevailing prejudices, have been 

 somehow or other overlooked by his reviewers, either owing to 

 their obtuseness or to their dislioiiestj' — perhaps their cowardice. 

 Now, I myself am — certainly ought to be — the very last to find 

 fault with'Mr. Ruskin for freely giving vent to his own opinions, 

 — in some of wliich he is likely to stand quite alone ; but it surely 

 was the duty of his critics to prepare their readers for what must 

 have caused some of them to make wry faces. His tirade against 

 "that treacherous phantom which men call Liberty," must shock 

 not a few; his sneering at the idea of anything being done for Art 

 by "pottery and printed stufl's," will not obtain him friends in the 

 manufacturing districts or schools of design; and his utter aver- 

 sion to Railroads and Railway travelling, cannot fail to scandalise 

 a \ery numerous class indeed, if we include the holders of shares. 

 Little would it have mattered what he himself says, did not his 

 reviewers assent to and sanction such exceedingly outrageous nc- 



